Following a dispute between Airtel staff and the company, over five million Airtel Nigeria subscribers were without mobile phone coverage last week, reports Vanguard.

According to the newspaper,

“Airtel said some people claiming to be NLC members shut down 15 showrooms this week (last week) and attacked its switchboard in the capital, Abuja, cutting off 5 million customers from its network across the north of Africa’s most populous nation.”

You may recall that last week, Airtel Nigeria was accused of laying off thousands of its employees, which the company denied, saying the workers were employed by other companies it contracted.

In a statement issued by the company last Thursday, it said:

“Airtel did not sack any employee. The employees being referred to, work for Tech Mahindra and Spanco, who provide us Call Centre services. The employees in question were contracted through two employment agencies, namely HR Indexx and CCSNL, whose contracts with Tech Mahindra and Spanco expired on September 30, 2011.”

The company further noted that Spanco and Tech Mahindra were working on plans to recruit new employees, which would include some of the contracts that have recently expired.

Image: Rajan Swaroop, Airtel Nigeria’s CEO.

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